Obama has young adults' ear -- and their vote

He's got social networking pages online. He visits college campuses, where enthusiastic student groups lobby hard to get peers involved in politics.

Those are, by now, tried-and-true tactics on the presidential campaign trail. But if the results in Iowa are an indication, there is more to Barack Obama's popularity among young voters than his ability to simply reach them.

"Anyone can show up on MTV and say they appeal to young people. Anyone can have a Facebook page. But none of that is going to get you young people's support. They're smarter than that," says Ganesh Sitaraman, 25, a law student at Harvard University, who co-edited the book "Invisible Citizens: Youth Politics After September 11."

What Obama seems to have is an "it" factor -- an unusual ability to not only engage young voters, but to get them to show up at the polls.

He did it when he ran for the U.S. Senate in Illinois in 2004. He did so again in Iowa on Thursday, when people under 30 represented more than a fifth of the overall vote in that state's caucuses.

Of those, nearly two-thirds said they wanted change. And of that group, three-quarters backed Obama, according to a poll conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks.

Young voters have shown signs in recent years of wanting to upend the status quo -- under 30s were the only age group to cast the majority of their votes for Democrat John Kerry in 2004 -- but it has been a while since a candidate has generated this enthusiasm, says Molly Andolina, a political science professor at DePaul University who tracks young voters.

She tells the story of a student who showed her phrases he'd written down from Obama's recent victory speech in Iowa.

"All of them had to do with hope," says Andolina, who believes Obama has struck a chord with young people. "He's been able to capitalize on their yearning to believe in somebody."

At age 46, Obama is closer to their age, too young to be of the Vietnam era or the Washington establishment that has left many young people disillusioned.

When endorsing Obama and Republican John McCain, college newspapers in Iowa praised both for sidestepping partisan politics.

"Obama grasps the bigger picture," said the endorsement in the Iowa State Daily. "He doesn't seem to be entrenched in a system that only offers pessimism."

He's also been praised for addressing issues important to students -- ending the war in Iraq, global warming, accessibility to medical care and making college more affordable -- although all the major Democratic candidates have offered proposals on these issues.

"Young voters feel like these are issues that will land in their laps. They are our problems to solve, not our parents," says Sujatha Jahagirdar, program director for Student PIRGs New Voters Project, which has been mobilizing young people in Iowa, New Hampshire and beyond.

She noted that Republican Mike Huckabee also has shown a willingness to respond directly to students' questions on such issues as global warming.

At the University of New Hampshire, sophomore Ashley McFarland has noted particularly strong campus support for both Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

It remains to be seen whether that support will equate to votes in Tuesday's New Hampshire primary for either candidate.

McFarland is leaning toward voting for Clinton or Obama, but has yet to decide.

Among other things, she says she's appreciated being able to talk, one on one, with the two candidates' student campaigners -- and much prefers that to the barrage of political ads on TV.

"You can't ask a television questions," McFarland says.

In Iowa, Clinton did not have as strong a showing with young female voters as some expected. And some wonder if that will be the case with young women elsewhere.

"They haven't fought for the rights that weren't there for Hillary's generation. ... That's their mothers' generation," says Annelise Orleck, a history professor at New Hampshire's Dartmouth College who studies women and politics. "I think, to them, Obama feels younger and fresher."

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On The Net:

Young voter stats: http://www.civicyouth.org